Gold, silver, pgms, mining and geopolitical comment and news

Trump

The better gold price, coupled with the big downturn in general equities, has meant that over the year to date gold has outperformed stocks quite significantly even in the USA – and even more so in most other countries.

As the year draws to a close we see that gold has outperformed equities, virtually everywhere in the world. Year to date U.S. equities, as measured by the Dow, S&P and NASDAQ, are down over 10%, while European and Asian equities have fallen by even greater percentages. Gold, in U.S. Dollars is also down year to date, but only by a little under 4%. Indeed the gap may even be widening as the year end approaches with gold gaining and equities still falling.

So even in the U.S. gold has comfortably outperformed equities over the year, while in other key currencies it has even done rather better having seen gains in most, with many currencies declining in value against the mighty dollar. Globally, thus gold has more than performed its role as a safe haven investment extremely well. In countries where the domestic currency has collapsed, like Venezuela and, to an extent, Argentina, gold has proved to be an exceptionally good asset to hold.

As an example of gold in major currencies, the gold price in Euros is up by 1% so far this year and in the British pound sterling it is up around 2.5%. while in both the EU and the UK equities have fallen sharply (around 11%) over the year to date. In the Australian dollar gold is up almost 6%, and in Canada it is up around 3.5% in the domestic currency’ while again equities are down sharply in both countries.

There are exceptions of course – in Japanese yen gold is down by 5.7%, but Japan’s prime stock index – the Nikkei – is off by 11.4% so gold has still easily outperformed the market there too. In Swiss Francs, another currency which is usually considered among the stronger palyers, gold is also down – by around 2.9% – but again it has comfortably outperformed the Swiss Stock market which is also down a little over 11%! (All figures as at close Friday December 21st).

If one looks also at another key investment asset – the heavily promoted bitcoin – the biggest bitcoin player, BTC, has lost around a massive 70% since January 1st this year. I think that more than quashes any argument that bitcoin provides a better haven than gold which was prevalent when BTC was riding high in the second half of 2017. It has proved to be a far more volatile asset than gold which somewhat defeats the safe haven principle! It is altogether a much more speculative asset class and we would not be surprised to see the price dive further in the weeks and months ahead. Other cryptocurrencies have declined even further than BTC in percentage terms.

As we have noted before we have not been a believer in bitcoin as an investment. We warned people to get out when BTC was at around $10,000 on the way up to almost double that level so we were a little early with our advice, but were obviously correct in principle. In our view it’s better be out too soon in what was looking increasingly like a developing bubble situation than too late!

So what happens from here? Equities are still looking vulnerable while portents for gold and the other precious metals are looking positive although data may yet change the position of either or both. Geopolitics are ever increasingly uncertain – in part due to President Trump’s domestic difficulties and his insistence on a continuing trade dispute with China which seems to be disadvantageous to both nations. There are also continuing issues in the Middle East, Ukraine, Afghanistan, North Korea and the South China Sea to name but five potential flashpoints – but there could well be others which crop up in the year, or years, ahead. The Democratic party majority in the U.S. House of Representatives which will be in place in 2019 and the subsequent possibility of moves to impeach the U.S. President add further degrees of uncertainty to the mix, which could weigh on equities and the dollar and boost precious metals.

Some observers feel that silver, which has underperformed in the past year, might be the precious metal to plump for given that it tends to outperform gold when the latter is in a rising pattern. Palladium fundamentals look strong too, but the price could suffer if there is an economic recession, as could that of silver, and a global recession may, or may not, be on the cards. A U.S. recession has looked unlikely in the near term, but further falls in equities could lead to negative overall sentiment which could push the recession button and adversely affect all industrial metals – sooner rather than later.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is currently looking as if it will reduce the projected number of interest rate rises next year. If this is indeed confirmed – or if the Fed looks as if it will reduce the number of rate rises further, which looks possible if equities continue on their downwards path – then this could depress the U.S. dollar and gold could move up strongly.

A word of caution for precious metals investors though – should equities truly crash, which has to be a possibility, liquidity issues could also lead to a precious metals sell-off too as happened in 2008 as big investors struggled to stay afloat and needed to sell good assets to do so. However, if history repeats itself in this respect the twin consolations are that firstly some of the big institutions are much lighter on gold holdings this time around, given that gold investment fell out of favour given the seeming ever-upwards path of equities up until the past few weeks. And secondly comfort could be gained in that back in 2008/9 gold was the quickest major asset class to recover – indeed was rising strongly while equities were still on the way down!

My latest article on the Sharps Pixley website looks at gold’s performance over the past week with it affected positively and negatively by conflicting statements on U.S. policy on the dollar at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but culminating in gold being held marginally below the psychologically important $1,350 level at the week’s end through activity in the gold futures and currency markets.

With potentially conflicting comments re. the weakness of otherwise of The U.S. dollar from U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and President Trump, the gold market didn’t know which way to run. Mnuchin had to backtrack, but not particularly convincingly, on his weaker dollar being beneficial to the U.S. economy statement lest he be accused of talking the dollar down in conflict with U.S. assurances that it would not do so. President Trump’s Davos statement suggested he was in favour of a stronger dollar, contrary to his earlier position on the currency, and following this the dollar rose, and gold fell on Thursday. But then the former reverted to lower levels in Friday afternoon trade in the U.S. and gold rose back above $1,350 before activity in the futures markets and gentle dollar support brought gold back to heel and the yellow metal ended the week a fraction under the key $1,350 level.

To an impartial (relatively) external observer of the market the gold price did appear to be trying to rebound back above $1,350 but kept being knocked back again. Whether it can build sufficient momentum to breach the $1,350 level permanently next week remains to be seen, but one suspects it will do so barring any major adverse news or data.

So far this year precious metals have all done well as Nick Laird’s bar chart from www.goldchartsrus.com shows (below). The bar chart shows the relative performances of the four major precious metals, the HUI (the NYSE ARCA Gold Bugs index) and Nick’s Silver 7 index tracking seven major silver stocks and the stock indices have generally outperformed the metals which are their key drivers. As can be seen platinum is by far the best performer year to date, but all have done pretty well given the year is only just over 3 weeks old. We suspect that Silver and the Silver 7 Index will ultimately outperform the others – however we would have said that in 2017 too – and ever-unpredictable silver ended the year as performing far more poorly than gold, and particularly palladium which was far and away one of the best assets of any type to hold last year.

As readers of my writings here will know I am anticipating precious metals to do well this year – except perhaps palladium which may have risen too far too fast in 2017. But I don’t anticipate any of them doing spectacularly well with rises pretty much in line with gold’s 2017 performance (See:Precious metals price predictions for 2018 – gold, silver, pgms) , but this year stocks may comfortably well outperform the metals assuming the general trajectory for both is upwards. The key may well be dollar strength and if the Trump Administration sees exports picking up, and imports falling, due to a weaker dollar, then the engineered decline in the dollar index may be allowed, or even encouraged, to continue. This process may well be mitigated though by similar effective currency devaluations among competitor nations or areas as others seek to contain any competitive disadvantage with their own export businesses.

Gold’s naysayers and doubters came out in full force earlier this summer as sentiment reached its nadir. The mid-year pullback in prices did, too.

There can be no doubt about it now – gold has broken out of its summer doldrums. On Monday, the yellow metal finally broke through the longstanding $1,300/oz resistance zone to make a new high for the year at $1,316.

Assuming the breakout holds, the next upside target is $1,375/oz, the high point for 2016.

There are plenty of bullish factors behind gold’s recent upside momentum to continue pushing prices higher in the days and weeks ahead. The gold mining stocks are starting to show relative strength again. And the U.S. Dollar Index appears to have begun another new down leg this week, falling Monday to a two-and-a-half-year low.

Another bullish factor is geopolitics. Gold gained a few more dollars in early trading Tuesday morning in Asia after North Korea launched a missile over Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “Their outrageous act of firing a missile over our country is an unprecedented, serious and grave threat and greatly damages regional peace and security.”

On any ordinary news day, this dangerous provocation from North Korea would be the top story on all the cable news channels. Hawks would be calling on the U.S. to retaliate, and doves would be warning of the potential for millions of deaths in the event war breaks out in the densely populated region.

For now, though, the unprecedented flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey is the Trump administration’s top priority. Early estimates are that the storm has caused $40 billion in damage. Water levels are still rising in Houston, and surrounding areas extending to Louisiana, so the scale of the catastrophic losses stemming from 11 trillion gallons of water will continue to grow in the days ahead.

Several major oil refineries have been shut down by the storm. However, crude oil production is little affected. Oil inventories are expected to build even as gasoline prices rise (gasoline futures jumped 3% on Monday).

The disaster is bringing Americans from disparate backgrounds and worldviews together, united in a common purpose to help provide relief to those in need. Perhaps Congress will set aside some of its partisan acrimony when it goes back into session next week. Unfortunately for taxpayers, though, outbreaks of bipartisanship are usually associated with emergencies that cause both sides to agree on even more spending.

The political pressure to make sure federal agencies are equipped to handle Harvey relief efforts (which will be ongoing for months) figures to be overwhelming. Conservatives who had aimed to force concessions in an upcoming budget fight may conclude that they now have no leverage to do so.

President Donald Trump so far hasn’t backed off his vow to pursue border wall funding even if Congress refuses and a government shutdown occurs. But a government shutdown in the aftermath of a major natural disaster could be a political disaster for whoever gets blamed for it.

With so many risks hitting investors this week, it’s no surprise that the gold market is benefiting from safe-haven inflows.

Silver is benefiting as well. Although the silver market has not yet hit a new high for the year, prices advanced nearly 2.5% Monday to close above the 200-day moving average.

If silver can now start showing leadership, that would be bullish for the entire precious metals complex. The gold:silver ratio currently stands at about 75:1. Gold is still trading at a high price historically relative to silver.

The ratio can move rapidly to the downside when silver prices are surging. That was the case from late 2010 to early 2011, when the ratio dropped from the high 60s to the low 30s. An even bigger move could be in store for those who buy silver now, while the gold:silver ratio is still in the 70s.

*About the Author:

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 “Dealer of the Year” in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, Seeking Alpha, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.

While there is little doubt that the USA has a much larger and proven nuclear arsenal than North Korea, Kim Jong Un will know that to deploy this against the relatively small Asian nation is fraught with problems in that nuclear fallout as a result of any such attack could also have an impact on China and South Korea – the one a potentially even more dangerous adversary and the other an ally. Whereas if North Korea were to take out say Guam with a nuclear strike, which it has threatened to do, the impact on other nations would be far less. However we feel either scenario is unlikely, although one can’t rule out an escalation into conventional warfare..

In assessing the risk though one assumes the U.S. is also bearing in mind that North Korea has long threatened drastic military action against its many perceived adversaries, but has seldom, if ever, delivered this. There is also no certainty that North Korea has developed small enough nuclear warheads to fit into its Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) which it has been developing, nor if they really have the range to reach the U.S. mainland, or the accuracy of delivery to hit their targets with any precision. Anti-missile defence systems are also likely to be deployed around potential targets by America and its regional allies, but their efficacy is also unproven.

The whole rhetoric game – from North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un on the one side and President Trump on the other – may thus be bluff on both sides, but with a U.S. President who is prone to shoot from the hip, it is still a very dangerous confrontational game. While a conventional non-nuclear war between the two powers would be hugely costly in terms of lives (North Korea has a huge and well equipped military) – even if China was not to be drawn in on the North Korean side – it would also be enormously dangerous to the South Korean capital, Seoul, which is only 35 miles (60km) from the North Korean border and potentially within artillery range. (North Korean capital Pyongyang is around 130 km (80 miles) from the border so would not be quite so vulnerable to artillery attack from the South).

The big question probably is whether President Trump is painting himself into a corner with the ever-expanding hostile rhetoric. Kim Jong Un has a history of not following through on his more dire threats so may feel that Trump will also prove to be a paper tiger. But is this a misjudgement? The world just doesn’t know and there is a fear that the continuing provocations may just result in a shooting war. While nuclear arms may not be deployed by either side, at least initially, were North Korea to see itself losing such a conflict, its seemingly unstable leadership might consider launching a nuclear strike and heaven knows what that would lead to.

China may also be drawn in to any military conflict as it would rather not see a potentially hostile regime on its border. If a shooting war does start then the ultimate diplomatic solution would, assuming Kim Jong Un is actually defeated, perhaps give China control over whatever government would take the place of the current North Korean regime.

Gold supposedly thrives on uncertainty and while the hostile rhetoric between North Korea and the USA continues, the ensuing uncertainty will build. Coupled with the U.S. economy not performing as the Fed would like, we could also see a further decline in the U.S. dollar which should, de facto, give a boost to the dollar price of gold, which could thus be seen to appreciate strongly in dollar terms as 2017 progresses, even if the gains are not mirrored in other key currencies.

At the moment the gold price seems to be hovering uncomfortably in the $1,280s. Some seem to be trying to knock it back – U.S. trading on Friday for example saw the gold price pulled back sharply from a couple of brief forays into the $1,290s, but whether this was profit taking, or a case of once again the powers-that-be not wishing to see the psychological $1,300 level breached, remains to be seen. Morning trade in Europe today has seen the yellow metal move a little weaker in price, but this week could be make-or-break in terms of a move into the $1,300s. There are still a couple of weeks of the northern hemisphere holiday season yet to run when trading can be thin, although that hasn’t been the case in the past week, but we will probably have to wait until post U.S. Labor Day (Sept 4th) for any real trend to develop.

What will happen then will be very much dependent on the escalation, or de-escalation of the U.S.-North Korean militaristic rhetoric and on U.S. economic data, which has recently been gold supportive in showing weakness in the purported U.S. economic recovery, thus reducing the Fed’s interest rate raising options

Over the longer term, this observer remains on the side of the gold bulls. Asian demand, which is soaking up virtually all the physical gold which is available, will continue to grow as the overall wealth trend in the region remains positive; New mined supply will remain flat, or trend downwards, albeit perhaps only marginally. Should U.S. safe haven demand return – more likely the longer the Trump-Kim war of threats continues – then we could see a serious squeeze in physical gold availability and the diminution of the ability of paper gold transactions – real or spoofed – to control the price. Interesting times!

Please note that the Shanghai Fixes are for 1 gm of gold. From the Middle East eastward metric measurements are used against 0.9999 quality gold. [Please note that the 0.5% difference in price can be accounted for by the higher quality of Shanghai’s gold on which their gold price is based over London’s ‘good delivery’ standard of 0.995.]

Both New York and London turned higher yesterday. New York rose to Shanghai’s level again, at the close yesterday and London today went higher but still left a differential with Shanghai at $7 which was lower than yesterday’s differential. All global gold markets have found their bottom.

Today –Silver closed at $15.84 yesterday after $15.66 at New York’s close Monday.

LBMA price setting: The LBMA gold price was set today at $1,219.40 from yesterday’s $1,211.90. The gold price in the euro was set at €1,064.23 after yesterday’s €1.063.26.

Ahead of the opening of New Yorkthe gold price was trading at $1,217.20 and in the euro at €1,062.69. At the same time, the silver price was trading at $15.83.

Price Drivers

The gold price has confirmed the bottom is in and it rose to $1,219 this morning in London. The support at the $1,200 level is very large. But you will note that in the euro, it has barely moved. We see the weakening dollar playing a strong role in the dollar gold price going forward. This means that we must gauge the gold price by looking at it in different currencies as well as the dollar.

Demand from China remains strong as you can see from the numbers out of Shanghai [above], but demand out of India is scant.

The buying in India ahead of the new GST tax took demand away for a period after its imposition. Once this is soaked up by the market, demand will return to normal. With the Monsoon still underway we do not expect demand to pick up until the end of August.

Trump or A.I.

The media in the U.S. is hounding President Trump and his family relentlessly. But now they are attributing his son’s actions in meeting Russians as a reason for Treasury yields moves. The impact they are having is that the new Administration’s plans on stimulating the economy and ‘draining the swamp’ have led to the Administration finding they are stuck in the mud and can’t get going on their plans. This in itself is weakening the dollar and holding back the economy from becoming robust. Markets will price this in, not the Trump/Russia issue.

What is now coming to the fore in matters concerning the dollar and the Fed is falling inflation and the failure of wages to rise as expected with ‘full’ employment. While we have been highlighting artificial intelligence as a major economic factor for years now, we see banks recognizing it a contributing strongly to the poor quality jobs being taken up and for workers inability to wage bargain. We see A.I. continuing to do this in the years ahead and now likely to affect Fed policy on interest rates. The impact will be increasingly dovish and lead to the dollar weakening over the years ahead. It is already close to entering a bear market. The same problem is being felt in all industrialized countries including China.

Gold ETFs

Yesterday saw no sales or purchases from or into the SPDR gold ETF or the Gold Trust. The SPDR gold ETF and Gold Trust holdings are at 832.391 tonnes and at 211.41 tonnes respectively.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have brought some surprises and disappointments – as well as some new threats and new opportunities for precious metals investors.

Among the disappointments was President Trump’s inability to push Obamacare repeal through Congress. The White House intended for the GOP’s replacement to reduce the deficit and lay the groundwork for tax cuts.

Now there is a very real chance that no tax reforms whatsoever will be passed this year. And that would be an even bigger disappointment to many investors. Ideological divisions within the GOP may well lead to debt ceiling brinksmanship and a possible government shutdown.

Trump’s surprise about-face on foreign policy in ordering bombings in Syria could have far-reaching implications for U.S. relations with other problem regimes including Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. The geopolitical risks going forward are many and range from a new Cold War, to trade and currency wars, to the worst-case scenarios of a North Korean attack on Hawaii or an all-out nuclear war.

The debate over what to do about Assad’s regime in Syria is a sideshow compared to the looming conflict with China. Unlike Syria, China is a major world power that has the ability to hurt the U.S. economically and undermine its geostrategic position in the world.

The Chinese economy is drowning in debt that is tied to overvalued real estate and overbuilt infrastructure (including its infamous “ghost cities”). The only way to avert a crash may be for Chinese authorities to devalue their currency.

That’s exactly what Jim Rickards, author of Currency Wars and The Death of Money, thinks will happen. He expects the Chinese yuan to be devalued. That, in turn, could trigger turmoil in U.S. financial markets and an angry response from the Trump administration.

Gold and Silver Shine Despite Fed Rate Hikes

During times of rising geopolitical uncertainty, precious metals tend to benefit from safe-haven inflows. So far in 2017, gold and silver have been off the radar of most investors as global equity markets have remained stubbornly elevated – seemingly impervious to any bad economic news or troubling developments in international relations.

Gold (and silver) have performed well
so far during Trump’s presidency.

Maybe investors are willing to give President Trump an extended honeymoon period. But at some point, optimism toward the Trump economy will crack if he and the GOP Congress can’t find a way to deliver on their core promises to voters.

At some point, tensions with foreign adversaries could escalate and blow back on markets.

At some point, the Federal Reserve could raise rates one too many times and trigger a stock market meltdown.

Of course, there is no guarantee that any of the extant threats to financial markets will redound to the benefit of precious metals markets. As long as the Fed remains committed to raising rates, the U.S. dollar stands to gain against foreign currencies – at least in theory.

So far in 2017, the Greenback has drifted slightly lower despite hawkish gestures from the Fed. Gold and silver, meanwhile, have performed well so far during Trump’s presidency. In April, gold prices broke out above a resistance level near $1,260/oz.

A Contrarian Perspective

Markets don’t always move in response to events – and when they do, sometimes it’s in the opposite direction of popular expectations. Case in point: Trump’s election win was supposed to be bad for the stock market. It turned out to be great for the stock market.

The Fed was supposed to be bullish for the dollar and bearish for precious metals this year. So far, that popular expectation has been proven wrong.

If you try to trade in and out of gold and silver positions based on what’s in the news, you’ll get constantly whipsawed. Sometimes events in the world that ought to be bullish for gold end up having no effect or a negative effect on prices. And sometimes seemingly bearish headlines kick off rallies rather than price drops.

As we’ve advised before, investors should expect the unexpected. We live in an unpredictable world and are governed by an unpredictable White House. The best way to make sure you’re never caught off guard is to always hold a core position in physical precious metals.

*About the Author:

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange,the national precious metals company named 2015 “Dealer of the Year” in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, Seeking Alpha, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.

Gold prices have skyrocketed to a five-month high above $1,270 in the wake of geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and after the Labor Department issued a lower-than-anticipated jobs report in March, and analysts at Blanchard and Company say they expect more gains for precious metals on the horizon.

“Gold’s price action following the missile attack on Syria was a traditional flight-to-safety move, and the jobs report only accentuated some of the weakness in the economy that has been overshadowed by post-election equities enthusiasm,” said Blanchard and Company President & CEO David Beahm. “With uncertainty around President’s Trumps policy toward Syria going forward, gold should benefit from safe-haven buying.”

Beahm said safe-haven buying and ideas that the weak jobs report could delay or slow future Fed interest rate hikes propelled the price of gold to a five month high, and rising geopolitical uncertainty and concerns about cracks in the economic picture have created fresh investor appetite for gold. Increasing tensions with North Korea and upcoming French elections are also boosting gold demand.

A potential conflict with Russia in the Syrian matter is another factor that could impact the price of gold to the upside, Beahm added. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the missile strike against Syria “an act of aggression against a sovereign state delivered in violation of international law under a far-fetched pretext.” Russia also initiated an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the incident, and on Friday afternoon it was reported that Russian warships were steaming toward the U.S. Navy warships that launched the Syrian attack.

“Last July, gold prices traded as high as the $1,390 an ounce, and precious metals traders are monitoring the $1,265 an ounce level closely,” Beahm said. “Sustained strength above that zone could be the signal for another strong rally wave in gold with the $1,300 level as the next bullish chart objective. Blanchard wouldn’t be surprised if we see this level in the near term with so much geopolitical uncertainty and no clear U.S. policy being articulated.”

Corrected link to US Gold Bureau below. Apparently the one I published originally won’t work.

Just to let readers know that I will be writing occasional original articles for Austin, TX based US Gold Bureau. The articles, by agreement with US Gold Bureau, will not appear here. The US Gold Bureau website https://invest.usgoldbureau.com is blocked from being viewed by computer users who do not have North American IP addresses as US Gold Bureau only provides its services in North America so isn’t interested in accesses from elsewhere. However, because lawrieongold has strong North American readership it may be worthwhile for my North American readers to log on to the US Gold Bureau site. There is a work-around for those without North American IP addresses, if interested, through setting up and utilizing the Tor Browser which can be configured to make it appear you have an IP address anywhere in the world.

A second article looking at the importance of Swiss gold imports and exports and their significance in terms of global gold flows is also up on the site: Switzerland is Key to Global Gold.Again you’ll need an american IP address – or a work-around – to access it.

Here’s comment from theCEO of one of the USA’s biggest gold dealers suggesting that President Trump’s failure to push his health care changes through Congress could suggest he may also have difficulties in persuading Congress to agree some of his other proposed key reforms – notably on taxation and infrastructure. The end result could be strong growth in the precious metals markets he avers.

After a post-election equities march to record highs dubbed by some as “the Trump rally,” the new president’s failure to deliver on Obamacare repeal and replacement may spell similar doom for his tax reform initiative, says the CEO of Blanchard & Co, which claims to be America’s largest precious metals investment firm, and gold is poised for significant gains if that happens.

“President Trump’s tax reform plan has been largely predicated on the savings the federal government would have seen had Congress been able to repeal and replace Obamacare,” says Blanchard and Company President and CEO David Beahm. “The stock market rally above 21,000 was largely driven by Wall Street’s expectation that corporate tax cuts were a given, but I think those prospects are looking much less certain today.”

As the equities markets begin to shed some of the gains they’ve seen since Trump’s election victory, and as political analysts begin to advance the comparison between Watergate in the early 1970s and the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the ties between associates with the Trump campaign and Russian hacking into the U.S. election, a new geopolitical uncertainty begins to take shape that will impact the markets even more.

“Two of the big historic drivers for the price of gold have been risk and global geopolitical uncertainty, and over the last 25 years dating to the first Gulf War, the Middle East has been the hotbed for a lot of that uncertainty,” Beahm said. “Now that we have a sitting President in the middle of a growing FBI investigation placing the world’s top superpower into a potential storm of geopolitical uncertainty, this could certainly unhinge equities markets and drive gold much higher.”

Until there’s some clarity that an investigation into the president and his team has concluded and found no wrong doing, the markets are likely to be volatile and risky. But gold should see increased investor demand to hedge stock risk, and the precious metals complex could see strong growth as a result, Beahm said.

After little more than two weeks, President Donald Trump’s honeymoon with Wall Street appears to have been put on hold—for the moment, at least—with major indices making only tepid moves since his January 20 inauguration. That includes the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, which surged in the days following Election Day on hopes that Trump’s pledge to roll back regulations and lower corporate taxes would benefit domestic small businesses the most.

And therein lies part of the problem. Although the President managed to sign an executive order last week requiring the elimination of two federal regulations for every new rule that’s adopted (and ordered a review of Dodd-Frank and former President Obama’s fiduciary rule), other campaign promises that initially excited investors—tax reform and an infrastructure spending deal among them—might have already hit a roadblock.

According to Reuters, a three-day meeting in Philadelphia between President Trump and congressional Republicans ended in a stalemate, with it looking less and less likely that tax reform will happen during Trump’s first 100 days in office—perhaps even the first 200 days. As for infrastructure, several Republicans were reportedly wary of committing to such an enormous spending package before more complete details become available.

Meanwhile, Trump’s seven-nation travel ban received a lukewarm—and, in some cases, hostile—reception from many in the business world who have traditionally depended on foreign talent. That’s especially the case in Silicon Valley, where close to 40 percent of all workers are foreign-born, according to the 2016 Silicon Valley Index. (Around the same percentage of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants, including Steve Jobs, whose biological father was Syrian.) One of the more dramatic responses toward the travel ban was Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s dropping out of Trump’s business advisory panel, following an outcry from users of the popular ride-sharing app who saw his participation with the President as an endorsement of his immigration policies.

I’ve shared with you before that the media often take Trump literally but not seriously, whereas his supporters take him seriously but not literally. I think it’s evident that the market is finally coming to terms with the fact that Trump, unlike every other politician before him, actually meant everything he said on the campaign trail, including his more protectionist and nationalist ideas.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with Trump’s plans to raise tariffs, withdraw from free-trade agreements and restrict international travel, it might be easy to some to see why he feels American companies need protecting from foreign competition. Last week I attended the Harvard Business School CEO Presidents’ Seminar in Boston, and among the topics we discussed was China’s ascent as an economic and corporate juggernaut. Take a look at the chart below, using data from Fortune Magazine’s annuallist of the world’s 500 largest companies by revenue. Whereas the U.S. has lost ground globally over the past 20 years, China’s share of large companies has exploded, from having only three on the list in 1995 to 103 in 2015. The number of Japanese firms, meanwhile, has more than halved in that time.

I will say, while I’m on this topic, that the uncertainty and unpredictablilty surrounding Trump has given active management a strong opportunity to demonstrate its value in the investment world. Assessing the risks and implications of his actions, policies and tweets, which change daily, really requires a human touch that fund managers and analysts can provide.

Dollar Down, Gold Up

One of those implications is the U.S. dollar’s decline. Following Trump’s comment that it was “too strong” and hurt American exporters’ competitiveness, currency traders shorted the greenback, causing it to have the worst start to a year since 1987.

This, coupled with a more dovish Federal Reserve, expectations of higher inflation and growing demand for a safe haven, has helped push gold prices back above $1,200 an ounce. January, in fact, was the best month for the yellow metal since June, when Brexit anxiety and negative government bond yields sent it to as high as $1,370.

Demand for gold as an investment was up a whopping 70 percent year-over-year in 2016, according to the World Gold Council.Gold ETFs had their second-best year on record. But immediately following the November election, outflows from gold ETFs and other products accelerated, eventually shedding some 193 metric tons.

But now, just two weeks into Trump’s term as President, the gold bulls are banging the drum, with several large hedge fund managers taking a contrarian bet on the precious metal.

Inflationary pressures are indeed intensifying. U.S. consumer prices rose 2.1 percent in December year-over-year, their fastest pace since 2014, and inflation across the globe is beating market forecasts, with the Citi Global Inflation Surprise Index turning positive for the first time since 2012. Anything above zero indicates that actual inflation is stronger than expectations for the month.

Please note that the Shanghai Fixes are for 1 gm of gold. From the Middle Eat eastward metric measurements are used against 0.9999 quality gold. [Please note that the 0.5% difference in price can be accounted for by the higher quality of Shanghai’s gold on which their gold price is based over London’s ‘good delivery’ standard of 0.995.]

Shanghai consolidated yesterday pulling back 3 Yuan or just over 1% with the Yuan a tiny bit stronger against the dollar. The fall does not indicate any more than a healthy correction.

Does this express a loss of pricing power? New York is at a $7 discount to Shanghai and London a narrowing of over $14. It would appear so [but only on a daily basis]. But Shanghai could drive prices tomorrow. We have to allow for corrections where demand on a daily basis [because prices have run too high?] pulls back and supply dominates for the short time it happens, before demand comes back at lower levels.

Some may feel that because London is the main physical market in the developed world it supplies China exclusively. Yes, the world’s main bullion banks are based in London, but they operate in both centers. Their hold over supply is far less than most believe. For instance the Rand Refinery in Johannesburg South Africa will sell to any buyer including the Chinese directly. It does not have exclusive agreements with the world’s main banks, as it had in 1974 with the three main Swiss Banks [the ‘pool’]. Shanghai buys from Switzerland and directly from producers/refineries. Hence we do not accept that London is the sole supplier of Shanghai. Add to that the profitability of the arbitrage trade which will smooth out price differentials. But because Shanghai is by far the largest physical gold market in the world, it does have pricing power normally. We will see that in the next week/month.

The gold price in the euro was set lower at €1,127.93after yesterday’s €1,129.06 as the dollar weakened.

Ahead of the opening of New Yorkthe gold price was trading at $1,200.00 and in the euro at €1,128.77. At the same time, the silver price was trading at $16.90.

Silver Today –Silver closed at $17.00 at New York’s close yesterday from $17.08 on the 18th January.

Price Drivers

On Inauguration Day we see President Trump take the reins. In addition, with the Republicans in the majority in both Congress and the Senate, government, at last is in a position to do something, without the opposition blocking it. The expectations are high, likely too high.

The U.S. economy is healthy so we are open to what the Fed also says as to interest rates. We don’t think they will change rates as they will want to see how the new President will move forward on respecting the economy. Only then will they act, or not.

The U.S. based gold ETFs continue to be relatively static after some buying recently. Exchange rates continue to have a major impact on the gold prices with China playing a strange game. All know that the Yuan should fall and the PBoC is targeting certain types of capital outflow, which do not benefit either the Yuan or the Chinese economy [such as wealth exiting China] but are still intervening in the Yuan exchange rate.

With such blocks on capital outflows, Chinese investors are favoring gold, which is a protection against a falling exchange rate of the Yuan. With gold such a strategic asset the government has encouraged Chinese investors to buy gold hence we do not believe that they have placed restraints on imports of gold.

Gold ETFs – Yesterday, in New York, there were no purchases or sales into or from the SPDR gold ETF (GLD) or the Gold Trustb (IAU), leaving their respective holdings at 807.96 tonnes and 198.75 tonnes.

Since January 4th 2016, 205.83 tonnes of gold has been added to the SPDR gold ETF and to the Gold Trust.

Here’s a lightly edited version of my latest article posted on the Sharps Pxley website yesterday – trying to make sense of gold’s latest price movements as President Trump’s inauguration approaches. Yet again today gold is testing the $1,200 level on the downside and this time around the level may not be held, particularly if the Donald’s inauguration address seems to be conciliatry, as it probably will be – but with Trump who knows?

Gold investors are obviously holding back until they see which way the wind blows. The world’s biggest gold ETF, GLD, has seen no purchases or sales since last Friday when 2.96 tonnes were added. GLD sales or purchases do seem to provide something of a guide to the gold price direction – in the US dollar at least, which looks to be strengthening a little today – indeed today’s gold price weakness may well be down to a small recovery in the dollar index.

The EDITED VERSION OF THE Sharps Pixley article follows:

Gold has had a decent run, after a sharp fall immediately following last month’s US Fed interest rate rise. If one looks back to last year, the gold price was volatile, particularly before and after the various Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings and it looks that this year the same may happen all over again, but this time around gold price movement up or down may be tempered by the perceptions of how the USA’s 45th President’s proposed policies may affect the economy. While the Fed may be set on at least three interest rate rises this year – Yellen’s San Francisco statement yesterday did nothing to suggest this wouldn’t happen – we still think they may play wait-and-see before pulling the interest rate trigger, although others, like the well-respected, but nowadays slightly alarmist commentator, Jim Rickards, think the Fed will move quickly and implement another 25 basis point increase as early as March.

This year’s FOMC meetings, at which interest rate decisions are usually made, are due to be held right at the end of this month (Jan 31-Feb 1), which is almost certainly too close to the President Trump inauguration (tomorrow) for any such decision to be made. The following meeting will be on March 14-15 – Rickards’ suggested date for the next rate rise – then May 2-3 and June 13-14 bring up the balance of FOMC meetings in H1 2017. We think the Fed may err on the side of caution and wait for one of these latter two meetings to raise rates for the first time in 2017 – if at all – in order to see which way the economic wind is blowing after the first few months of office of perhaps the most divisive U.S. President ever. However an early rate rise could be seen as a Fed attempt to regain credibility given its failure to match its own economic predictions in previous years.

For the record, the H2 FOMC meetings will be on July 25-26, September 19-20, October 31-November 1 and December 12-13. Expect gold price volatility around all these dates, as we saw in 2016. If the Fed does raise rates early and the U.S. economy looks stable, unemployment doesn’t rise and equity markets don’t collapse then there could be a further two, or even three, rises in H2, but the uncertainty around the Trump Presidency makes this far from a sure thing.

Yellen’s statement yesterday did reiterate that in her, and presumably her colleagues’, viewpoint the U.S. economy remains on course to be able to support three small interest rate hikes this year, and more next, with a potential target of ‘normality’ of around 3% by the end of 2019. But the Fed has been notoriously poor in its predictions for the strength or otherwise of the U.S. economy over the past five years or so. Has its forecasting suddenly improved. The Trump Presidency could well throw the Fed’s projections into disarray yetr again – but this could go either way if the new President’s policies are perceived to be generally stimulative for the U.S. economy.

Yet Rickards, despite his prediction that the Fed will raise interest rates at the March FOMC meeting disagrees: “They (The Fed) will raise (rates) in March and then something will hit the wall, either the economy or the stock market or both. Then the Fed will backpedal from there, starting with a forward guidance then perhaps a rate cut later in the year,” he says on his blog, and recommends holding gold and U.S. 10-year Treasurys.

If Rickards is correct in his predictions, the gold price could fly in the final three quarters of the year as the Fed misses its interest raising opportunities again. But others do see the U.S. economy, inflation and unemployment levels ticking all the boxes for the Fed’s interest rate raising plans going forward.

But so much will depend on President Trump and whether Congress will allow him to proceed with his plans to cut taxes, spend heavily on infrastructure to boost the economy and implement other fiscal stimuli and cut legislative blockages given the country’s huge debt position. The Trump proposals, if implemented, can only increase debt! If the Trump boost to the economy is thwarted – there may be a Republican majority in both houses, but there are a number of anti-Trump GOP members in Congress and coupled with probably blanket opposition from the Democrats still sore over the Trump Presidential Election victory – the Donald’s legislative path may thus not be an easy one.

The last day of April will see the Trump Administration’s first 100 days in office – a time when the media tends to make its first judgments of likely success or otherwise of the new President’s proposed programmes – and we believe the Fed should not take any interest rate raising decisions before then at least, although what we believe is a sensible course will hardly influence the FOMC in its deliberations!

What will the first 100 days see? We think some of the proposed policies will have to be rolled back altogether and a number of compromises will have to be made to satisfy Congress, while the Senate may block one or more of the Presidents’ proposed cabinet members from taking office which coluld make for an adverse perception of President Trump’s promises and his ability to deliver on them..

Gold is testing the $1,200 level on the downside today, but the enormous opposition to Trump as President, which will likely be highlighted by huge demonstrations in the nation’s capital, may sober the equity markets and boost gold again temporarily – but thereafter volatile markets are likely until a much clearer idea of where Trump policies are taking the nation become apparent.

Precious metals had a wild ride in 2016, launching higher in the first half of the year and then falling much of the way back to earth in the second half. Our outlook for 2017 hinges on some of the drivers that figured prominently in last year’s trading. There are also a couple of new wrinkles.

Europe

We’ll start with some fundamentals that metals investors have become well acquainted with in recent years. The troubles plaguing Europe seem to be forgotten, but they certainly aren’t gone. The question is whether or not officials in Europe will be able to keep the wheels on in 2017.

Several major European banks remain in jeopardy, plagued by bad debts, too much leverage, and mounting legal expenses. Germany’s Deutsche Bank (DB) was often in the headlines last year as its share prices made all-time lows. Deutsche Bank paid out $60 million to settle charges of manipulating the gold market.

In addition, regulators in the U.S. had proposed a crushing $14 billion fine related to the bank’s marketing of dodgy mortgage backed securities prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

Since then share prices have recovered significantly. The bank agreed last month to a settlement of just over $7 billion, roughly half the amount originally proposed but still a hefty penalty. The bank’s loan book still looks ugly and its exposure to risky derivatives remains a wild card.

The recent failure of Italy’s third largest bank – Monte dei Paschi – may put the spotlight back on the European banking sector. Particularly if other institutions, such as Deutsche Bank, have been aggressively selling credit default swaps they will now have to pay out on.

Investors grappled with the Brexit referendum in 2016. This year they will find out if Britain’s vote to leave the EU will actually get implemented. Negotiations around the departure are expected to commence in May.

Italians are going to select a new government shortly and there are elections coming up in Germany, France, and the Netherlands in the months ahead. Anti-European Union forces are making real headway in the polls.

This year looks pivotal for the EU, the euro as its currency, and its banks. Turmoil there will boost safe haven buying in precious metals and the U.S. dollar. Alternatively, should the establishment and the banks weather the storm, metal prices could suffer, at least in terms of euros. Right now, turmoil in Europe looks like the better bet.

The Fed

Once again markets enter a new year in thrall to Janet Yellen and the rest of the Federal Open Market Committee. Like last year, we just had one rate hike. Officials are telegraphing three to four additional hikes in the coming 12 months.

Last time around the stock market suffered stimulus withdrawals. Fed officials threw in the towel and reversed course almost immediately. We can expect officials are watching equity prices carefully now. If the S&P 500 keeps powering ahead, they’ll have the cover they need to deliver rate increases.

If, on the other hand, we find out that markets are still addicted to low rates and officials can’t tolerate the pain of a withdrawal it will be bad news for the dollar and good news for metals.

A Donald Trump Presidency

The election of Donald Trump is what makes this year different. Many people are optimistic about the prospects for a major infrastructure program, tax cuts, and less regulation. Investors are ready to take on risk. Since the election, they have been mostly getting out of safe haven assets such as bonds and gold, while paying top dollar for stocks.

The rub is that Trump has yet to assume office. The expectations are high and, frankly, something has to give. Trump might deliver a big infrastructure program and some tax relief. However, that would spell trouble for the current dollar rally as people anticipate ballooning deficits and borrowing.

Or, Trump may find his proposed measures are easier said than done. Republicans control Congress, but there is no certainty they will accept big spending increases and even higher deficits. If optimism bumps up against a bleaker political reality, it’ll be bad news for investors playing the Trump rally.

Conclusion

2016 closed with investors positioning for smooth sailing and economic growth. They may get it but a number of things will have to go right. If they don’t, jettisoning safe haven assets to buy stocks at record high valuations won’t look like a very good idea.

*Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 “Dealer of the Year” in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, Siegner puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals’ brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

Inflation can be understood as the destruction of a currency’s purchasing power. To combat this, investors, central banks and families have historically stored a portion of their wealth in gold. I call this the Fear Trade.

The Fear Trade continues to be a rational strategy. Since President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise win a month ago, the Turkish lira has plunged against the strengthening U.S. dollar, prompting President Recep Erdogan to urge businesses, citizens and institutions to convert all foreign exchange into either the lira or gold. Most obliged out of patriotism, including the Borsa Istanbul, Turkey’s stock exchange, and the move has helped support the currency from falling further.

Venezuela, meanwhile, has dire inflationary problems of its own. Out-of-control socialism has led to an extreme case of “demand-pull inflation,” economists’ term for when demand far outpaces supply. Indeed, the South American country’s food and medicine crisis has only worsened since Hugo Chavez’s autocratic regime and the collapse in oil prices. The bolivar is now so worthless; many shopkeepers don’t even bother counting it, as Bloomberg reports. Instead, they literally weigh bricks of bolivar notes on scales.

Because hyperinflation has destroyed the bolivar, the ailing South American country sold as much as 25 percent of its gold reserves in the first half of 2016 just to make its debt payments. Venezuela’s official holdings now stand at a record low of $7.5 billion.

Trump-Carrier Deal a Case Study in U.S. Inflation

The U.S. is not likely to experience out-of-control hyperinflation anytime soon, as the dollar continues to surge on bets that Trump’s proposals of lower taxes, streamlined regulations and infrastructure spending will boost economic growth. But I do believe the market is underestimating inflationary pressures here in the U.S. starting next year.

As I explained to Scarlet Fu and Julie Hyman on Bloomberg TV last week, inflation we might soon see is largely caused by rising production costs, which is different from the situation in Turkey and Venezuela.

Nevertheless, it still serves as a positive gold catalyst for 2017.

Consider Trump’s recent Carrier deal—the one that saved, by his own estimate, 1,100 jobs from being shipped to Mexico. We should applaud Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence for looking out for American workers, but it’s important to acknowledge the effect such interventionist efforts will have on consumer prices.

As I see it, the Carrier deal is indicative of the sort of trade protectionism that could spur inflation to levels unseen in more than 30 years. The Indiana-based air conditioner manufacturer has already announced it will likely need to raise prices as much as 5 percent to offset what it would have saved by moving south of the border.

We can expect the same price inflation for all consumer goods, from iPhones to Nikes, if production is brought back home. That’s just the reality of it. Prices will go up, especially if Trump succeeds at levying a 35 percent tariff on American goods that are built overseas but imported back into the U.S. The extra cost will simply be passed on to consumers.

What’s more, Trump has been very critical of free trade agreements, threatening to tear them up after blaming them—NAFTA, specifically—for the loss of American jobs and stagnant wage growth. There’s some truth to this. But trade agreements have also helped restrain inflation over the past three decades. This is what has allowed prices for flat-screen, plasma TVs to come down so dramatically and become affordable for most Americans.

In its 2014 assessment of NAFTA, the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) calculated that for every job that could be linked to free trade, “the gains to the U.S. economy were about $450,000, owing to enhanced productivity of the workforce, a broader range of goods and services, and lower prices at the checkout counter for households.”

Additional tariffs and the inability to import cheaper goods are inflationary pressures that could result in a deeper negative real rate environment. And as I’ve pointed out many times before, negative real rates have a real positive effect on gold, as the two are inversely correlated.

Macquarie research shows that last year, ahead of the December rate hike, gold retreated about 18 percent from its year-to-date high. Afterward, it gained 26 percent in the first half of 2016. The decline so far this year has been about 15 percent from its year-to-date high. Gold, according to Macquarie, is setting up for another rally in a fashion similar to last year.

Central Bank Demand Could Accelerate on Growing Federal Debt

The U.S. government is currently saddled with $19.9 trillion in public debt. Since 2008, federal debt growth has exceeded gross domestic product (GDP) growth. And according to a Credit Suisse report last week, Trump’s tax proposal, coupled with deficit spending, could cause federal debt to grow even faster than under current policy.

After analyzing projections from a number of agencies and think tanks, Credit Suisse “estimates a federal debt-to-GDP of 92 percent by 2026, including a GDP growth offset from the lower tax tailwind, and 107 percent excluding the GDP growth offset.”

The U.S. dollar accounts for about 64 percent of central banks’ foreign exchange reserves. With the potential for higher U.S. budget deficits and debt risking dollar strength, central banks around the globecould be motivated to increase their gold holdings, says Credit Suisse.

Waiting for Mean Reversion

As I mentioned last week, gold is looking oversold in the short term and long term, down more than two standard deviations over the last 20 trading days. Statistically, when gold has done this, a return to the mean has often followed. This has been an attractive entry point for investors seeking the sort of diversification benefits gold and gold stocks have offered.

In a note to investors last week, ETF Securities highlighted these diversification benefits, writing that a gold allocation has “historically increased portfolio efficiency—lowering risk while increasing return—compared to a diversified portfolio without an allocation to precious metals.”

As always, I recommend a 10 percent weighting: 5 percent in gold bullion, 5 percent in gold stocks, then rebalance every year.

Here’s a lightly edited version of my thoughts on gold’s contrary reaction to the result of the recent Italian referendum which led to the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Article was published on SharpsPixley.com. (I publish articles on Sharps Pixley as I generate a small amount of income whereas I have not tried to commercialise lawrieongold which comes to you free of charge.)

I suppose we should have expected it after the Brexit vote and the Donald Trump US Presidential vote result, but yet again a plebiscite, whose result would normally have been expected to give a significant boost to the gold price appears to have had the opposite effect. This time it was the Italian referendum which saw a significant defeat for would-be reformist Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, and his as-promised subsequent resignation. True, as with the Trump and Brexit votes, once it became apparent which way the results would go, the gold price spiked upwards, but then it was brought down sharply as global markets opened giving further fuel to the conspiracy theorists claims that the financial and governmental elite is working in concert to suppress the global gold price. (Ed Steer who picked the article up in his own newsletter calls it conspiracy fact! – for details on his service click on edsteergoldandsilver.com )

The problem for gold is that strength in the yellow metal’s price is generally seen as recognition that the global economy is indeed in a parlous state and neither the big money, nor the politicians, want to see this interpretation gain public credence. For the former it would mean a market collapse, perhaps of epic proportions, destroying wealth, and for the latter it would damage the carefully orchestrated perceptions that all is well with the global economy, despite plenty of indicators that this is not the case – not least the debt mountains which have been built by many of the world’s major economies.

Modern day politics is all about perception. If people can be led to believe that all is well they will continue spending at levels that will indeed help the economy. In the U.S. for example there is plenty of evidence from non-massaged statistics, that the average person is worse off than they were a few years ago – in some cases substantially so. Yet we have just seen a consumer spending splurge on Cyber Monday which has broken all records. This is obviously unsustainable, but how long will it be when this perception that all is well with the world is just a myth is understood by the majority of the general public?

In part the Italian, US and UK votes highlighted above may also signify that this comfortable existence may indeed be on the way out, albeit perhaps just the beginning of such perception. All three are being seen as votes against the establishment, but in no case has the majority been large enough to carry much more than 50% of the vote (less in the case of the Trump victory) so there is still a very substantial number of people out there apparently still happy with the status quo. The ‘protest vote’ will have to grow much further if we are to see any serious perception change.

Part of the underperformance of gold against expectation after the Italian result has been put down to dollar strength, given a sharp fall in the euro as the result was confirmed which is seen as having the potential to upset the euro applecart and precipitate an Italian banking system meltdown with a correspondingly adverse impact on the whole European banking sector to which the Italian banks are severely in debt. But the resultant dollar strength has been shortlived, while gold has remained well down on its Friday close – despite Shanghai trying to give it a boost with a pm gold benchmark price, as calculated by kitco.com, of $1,198.11 – over $20 higher than the Globex spot price at the time.

You can’t write off Donald Trump’s chances of becoming the next US President whatever the polls might suggest. Most polls put Hillary Clinton in the lead – but not by much – and if the battleground states go the way the polls are suggesting it would only take Florida to move from a likely Democrat win to a Republican one to swing the electoral college votes in favour of The Donald. The latest Realclearpolitics.com electoral map with no ‘toss-ups’ (i.e those states which appear to be tending one way or the other are in as wins for whichever candidate is in the lead at the time) suggests a Clinton victory with 292 electoral votes against Trump’s 246 – it takes 270 to win the nomination. But, one of the states which is down as a Clinton victory on this basis – Florida with 29 electoral college votes – is far too close to call and seems to be trending in Trump’s direction. Do the maths. If Florida ends up for Trump, and the other states stay as predicted, Clinton would end up with 263 electoral college votes and Trump with 275!

Both candidates are hugely unpopular with a large sector of the US public and it may just come down to which candidate’s campaign can get the votes out. Parallels with Brexit here. The Exit campaign had more committed voters than the Remain campaign and other polls have suggested that Trump supporters may be more likely to turn out than Clinton ones. With Bernie Sanders now stating he is an independent, rather than a Democrat, some of the big numbers who wanted him as the Democratic nominee may well decide not to vote. That would be a serious blow for Clinton

There’s also the question of the accuracy of polling. The high profile political, economic and celebrity supporters appear to be almost all anti-Trump. His candidacy is ridiculed by many supposed opinion-leaders. Because of this one suspects that a number of people contacted in telephone polls will not like to admit they will be voting for Trump, even though that’s the way they will go. More parallels with the Brexit polls. With nearly all the big political and economic guns pressing for a Remain vote it appears that some questioned in telephone polls did not give an honest answer as to which way they would vote because they feared they would seem to be naïve to the poll conductors. Human nature. You don’t want to sound ignorant, uninformed or perhaps racist when talking to a stranger.

So don’t be totally surprised if the polls stay roughly where they are now, assuming neither candidate totally disqualifies themselves, but the result comes out differently.

Interestingly, a respected Professor – Alan Lichtman of DC’s American University – claims to have developed a formula of 13 key points which has correctly predicted the last eight Presidential elections. If the incumbent political party fails to meet at least six of these points, they will lose the election. See article on the CW33.com website: Professor Who Accurately Predicted Last 8 Elections Says Trump Will Winfor details of the specific key points in Lichtman’s analysis. In his view the Democratic party fails on at least six of these.

If Trump were to win, the American political and economic elite will be shell-shocked – not to mention most of the African American and female population of the U.S.A. Markets will probably be thrown into turmoil in the U.S. – and around the world too – as Trump is seen as both mercurial and unpredictable. He’s basically a hard-nosed businessman perhaps unsuited to the diplomatic niceties that global leaders expect from other political leaders. Getting his own way regardless of opposition would be the norm. Thus a Trump victory would be the biggest Black Swan event of the year and would generate huge global uncertainty. Gold thrives on uncertainty. Need I say more.

It takes one back to the episode of The Simpsons TV cartoon where Lisa Simpson becomes President and on entering the Oval Office is informed that the previous President – one Donald Trump – has bankrupted the country. In any realistic financial terms, if Trump wins he will be inheriting leadership of a nation which is already technically insolvent anyway. He has already sounded off about the Fed driving America to rack and ruin and could take steps to drastically change the status quo, but whether his remedies might make the current situation better or worse, who knows?

Prior to the UK’s Brexit vote we advised readers to buy gold against the possibility – small though it may have seemed at the time – of the UK voting to leave the EU – not only because we felt the gold price would rise in the aftermath of such a vote, but also that the pound sterling would fall. Gold would be a wealth protection insurance in such a case, but without serious downside risk attached. if the vote went as the polls were predicting That proved to be wise advice!

Perhaps now we should suggest that Americans do likewise with a similar potential scenario in sight should Trump come out on top Resultant uncertainty could drive the dollar down and gold up – which amounts to the same thing in some economists’ minds. Roll on November 8th and free us all from our uncertainties.

The above is a lightly edited and updated version of an article I have already published on the Sharpspixley.comwebsite